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Atago is my fave ship. Prior to getting one the Myoko was.
Atago has different torp arcs to the Myoko - the front torp launcher on each side faces towards the front of the ship, meaning you can launch torps at a much wider angle to other IJN CAs of the higher tiers.

The BB heal is nuts - but is the only reason the ship is tier 8.
Enjoy... Would try and make sure that your Captains that you use in her have the tier 3 skill that is +1 to consumables. Good perk to have as Zao (100% sure) and pretty sure Ibuki both have BB heal

Yeah I'm not as good with the Kuma/Tenryu as I am with Myoko/Atago.Myogi has excellent gun range, gun angle and speed, however has poor armour.Trick with her is to be able to hit things at range and angle your ship so you don't get cita'd.
Knowing when to use AP and HE against opponents will increase your damage massively as at this tier some Cruisers (Tenryu/Kuma) have no armour so AP will over-pen.

I haven't got Fuso+ yet.

I only play IJN ships, I can speak for other nations but other players will have more knowledge and skill and thus more valid assessments. Subsequently I mentioned the ships I found amazing.
Common assessment of (4)Isokaze v (5)Minekaze is that everyone tends to rave about the Minekaze. Well Isokaze is basically a slightly slower version of the same ship and will see lower tier matches - you be the judge but I prefer the Isokaze.
(2)Umikaze is just amazing and I'll frequently take it in div with allies in tier 4-5 ships. Doesn't do heaps of damage at these tiers but has 8km 21s reload torps and lowest spotted distance in game, meaning if you can play her right you can still carry. There have been Umikazi players who have nailed tier 10 matches.
(7)Myoko is frankly amazing, good AA, great guns, great range.
(8)Atago is basically a Myoko but tier 8, with BB heal, Slightly less AA/Range.
People generally rave about the (8)Mogami, but I have never gelled with her. It seems that unless you go the 155s and Captain perks (17+km range then), the 15km range means you get eaten. And I'm not wasting Captain perks on 155s when everything else tier 5+ is 203s.

DDs- If you are IJN, hold the line with your long range torps
if you are USN cap points and use your smoke to cover the team for the assault
If you are SN, burn everything
Cruisers - IJN, kill everything with your 203mm guns with either armor piercing for other cruisers or HE to anything else
USN, defend your battlegroup with your superior AA
GN, citadel anything within your range i mean everything even BBs, you can score hits and sometimes citadel with the superior german engineered guns
BB - IJN, Stay at the back, provide fire support with your force projecting main batteries. THey dont have much armor except Nagato and Yamato to handle heavy fire
USN, head the battlegroup with your superior armor and achieve area supremacy within the range
Carriers - IJN, KILL BBs and CVs thats your job use your fighters for scouting and interception as they are useless for all out air superiority
USN, achieve air superiority and deny the use of airpower against adversary carriers. You dont necessarily need to sink them just deny them of airpower

Many Small caliber Gun available to be used for AA
The current system make your Small main guns (DD and some Cruiser) able to shoot/give damage to enemy Planes while being able to use to shoot enemy ship

When, why and where do I use HE/AP? and What calibre of guns are suited for AP? Is the Atlanta's 5 inch guns suitable, for example?

These two questions are best answered together.

If you're using destroyer sized guns (on destroyers at the Atlanta), you should pretty much use HE all the time because its performance is more reliable in the current game. AP is worth it in these guns if you're at very short range (less than 5km) and you're a really good shot (and have low ping) if you're good enough to be able to target a ship's "citadel" area. You can also get some funny results against low tier cruisers using AP by plunging fire from long range (the Gremyaschy is infamous for this).

If you're using 6-inch guns (~ 150mm) on the spamboats like the Mogami or Cleveland, HE is basically your best friend since you can use it as a "one size fits all" ammunition type.

If you're using 8-inch guns (~ 200mm) like on most of the higher-tier cruisers, the general rule is to use HE most of the time; they're the most reliable round against destroyers and battleships will usually bounce your APs anyway. Against other cruisers (and other cruisers only) if your opponent starts showing his broadside to you, lead your fire so you hit in the dead-center of his ship at the waterline and you'll get citadel penetrations which can very quickly turn the battle in your favor. If you're not that good of a shot, you can stick to HE.

If you're using battleship guns (300mm and beyond), you're pretty much best off using AP most of the time. HE is better against destroyers, tangling with destroyers with battleships is something you should avoid doing because DDs are hard to hit. Many battleship players like to spam HE at long range because of inaccuracy at the chance to start fires, however AP can get citadel penetrations from plunging (long-range) fire on a lucky hit.

What determines penetration and how does armour counter the penetration?

Angle of impact and location of the hit. That's why you see battleship players turning in towards their opponent when their opponent fires - it raises up their belt (side) armor towards the enemy which is where the armor is the thickest, and often makes it impossible to hit the deck armor, which is pretty thin on most battleships. The trick is mostly useful only in battleships however - most other ships, even cruisers, have too thin of armor for that trick to matter, you're simply better off doing whatever you can to be hit by fewer shells.

You can also make AP shells (in particular) bounce off by having the impact be at too acute of an angle. If you notice your AP shells bouncing off of cruisers and you're in a battleship, it's likely that the cruiser was steaming straight at you - AP hitting the ship's nose are likely to simply bounce off.

If I have 100mm penetration but the enemy has 120mm of armour, is he completely invulnerable to my AP rounds?

Yes. But remember, no ship has 120mm over the entire ship. However, hitting areas that are more weakly armored may be very difficult.

Since armour is supposed to deflect shots away, why doesn't HE get deflected away? Is it like an Airburst round?

Naval rounds are a bit different from land shells. Essentially all naval shells of the period were HE (High-Explosive) or APHE (Armor-Piercing High-Explosive). HE shells were fuzed to explode on impact and have thin shell casings to maximize the size of their explosive payload. APHE shells have an armor piercing tip and less explosive because of that, however, they are fuzed to explode a fraction of a second after impact, whereupon they hopefully have penetrated inside the ship before exploding within the target.

If it is like an Airburst round, shouldn't HE strip away armour from ships?

It's not an airburst round.

Even if it were, it wouldn't strip armor away; that'd be like shooting a shotgun at a tank and expecting armor to be stripped away.

But spalling and fragmenting is still a danger from impact-fuzed HE. However, it's important to remember that people back then are as smart as they are now; their tools aren't as good as ours now, but they still had brains to think with and eyes to see. They were aware of these problems. Naval armor has gone through a lot of evolution. It isn't just "slabs of thick steel plating" for a long time. Essentially, people doing research for armor have known for centuries that you need both flexibility and hardness in armor. If armor is too hard, it becomes brittle (this why nobody uses slabs of synthetic diamond as armor - diamond is very hard but brittle); it might resist the initial impact but then it'll crack and shatter. At the opposite end of the scale you have flexible armor but that makes the armor "soft" and less able to resist penetration by armor piercing shells but it can deform better from impacts without cracking. The ideal armor plate for warships was one where the surface of the armor is very hard, but much of the inner thickness of the armor is softer steel that is able to distribute the force of the impact to reduce cracking. The first examples of this kind of dual-phase armor was literally to have a steel (or iron) plate with a thick wooden backing. As guns improved, this quickly became ineffective. So they wanted it in a single steel plate, leading to "face-hardened" armor, where the "face" of the armor (the outside) is very hard, but the inside of the plate is softer steel. A number of methods were tried and there were a lot of failures along the way (usually the "hard" steel would crack and separate from the "soft" steel if it weren't made right), but by WW2 they had a pretty workable system in place. By the end of the war and the start of the Cold War, missiles combined with advances in explosives technology created warheads which could overcome or outright avoid any thickness of armor had been developed so ships these days don't bother carrying much armor.

2. There are no real under-powered ships. At higher tiers, there will be massive changes in how you play a ship, some people can adapt, others can't and whine.

3. Damage.

4. I'd say the Cleveland.

5. I'm bias to myself, but I only have two tutorials out (I should make more). I wouldn't go for Jingles on how to play, he's fun to watch, but that is around it. iChase, as much as I dislike him, yeah. Baron is ok.

I'm going to be starting a series though (every Tuesdays) commentating over replays and answering the questions posted by the replay sender. It's a learn from the mistake of others sort of thing.

6. Iowa is love. Des Moines is delicious. Kagero is a good little destroyer.

7. Damage > Kills, but for more profit have Kills.

8. I went in with Random, but the first games you'll play will be against bots (since it is required).

9. Get a feel of the ship more, it is pretty fun to play. People also tend to forget it has torpedoes on both sides.

- Kills definitely matters, but this game focus a bit more on Damage than kills.

- Now I am a Casual player and I'd like to have fun - so I played tons of Co-Op. PvP is Way more competitive but earn you like 2 or 3 times as much experience. See what you want.

- Atlanta may seems like a Great AA ship Historically with all those 5 inch gun, but in WoWs this thing is More effective being a Support ship (Either with BB and CA/CL) and a DD hunter. This Lightening fast ROF made you Deadly to any DD dare to attack you (With HE) and if you can get the required skill you can annoy the heck out of any BB with HE Spam. Mind that your Velocity is pretty terrible and the range is limited. It's still a okay AA ship though - and with those Meh but usable torpedoes you can often surprise the hell out of BB if you need to engage a BB.

- Baron is Good - but I will recommend more of the 2 I said for WoWs. If you play WT Baron is one of the best though.

- UP? I won't say there's a Definite UP ship, but Mutsuki (Tier 6 IJN DD) is rather weak when compare to Minekaze.
OP ship - Nah really if there's one devs will nerf it quite quickly.

- Sadly the most important thing to get XP and $$$ is Damage instead of your "Plays" so to say. AFK will earn absolutely nothing (0 XP and Credits).

- Premium ships. Out of the 3 packages I recommend Sims - Fun little ship and guns are amazing. Torpedo are meh but usable.

- Jingles and iChase are great channel for you. Jingles is more of a noob guide but sometimes he make some critical mistake but still a great source. iChase is kinda like a QB/Jingles hybrid - better for more experienced players.